What Happened When We Fixed 10 Basic SEO Issues on a Real Business Site

Intro: Most Sites Are Full of Small Mistakes

You don’t need a massive overhaul to improve your SEO. Sometimes, it’s the basics that hold a site back — simple, fixable issues that quietly kill visibility.

In this case study, we’ll walk through 10 common SEO problems we found on a real small business website — and show you what changed after we fixed them.

The Site: A Local Service Business

Industry: Home renovation
Location: Mid-sized city in Southeast Asia
Traffic Before: ~250 visits/month (mostly brand searches)
CMS: WordPress
Tools Used: PageSpeed Insights, a technical audit tool, Google Search Console

The 10 Issues We Found (and Fixed)

1. No Meta Descriptions

Pages lacked meta descriptions entirely.
✅ We added concise, benefit-driven descriptions targeting the main keywords.

2. Duplicate Title Tags

Homepage and services pages shared similar titles.
✅ Each page got a unique title, optimized for intent.

3. Missing ALT Text on Images

90% of images had no alt text.
✅ Added descriptive, keyword-aligned alt tags.

4. Slow Mobile Load Time

LCP on mobile was 5.8s.
✅ Compressed images, enabled lazy loading, and deferred non-critical JS.

5. Non-Descriptive URLs

URLs like /page1 and /service2 were common.
✅ Renamed to /bathroom-renovation and /kitchen-remodeling etc.

6. No Internal Linking

Blog posts and service pages were isolated.
✅ Added contextual links between related content.

7. No Schema Markup

Google couldn’t interpret service details easily.
✅ Implemented LocalBusiness and Service schema.

8. Uncompressed Images

4MB+ hero images everywhere.
✅ Converted to WebP and added image compression in the CMS.

9. Outdated Sitemap

Sitemap included deleted pages.
✅ Generated new sitemap and submitted to Google.

10. No Canonical Tags

Multiple pages had duplicate content issues.
✅ Set canonical tags correctly to consolidate authority.

A split-screen showing a cluttered, broken site versus a fast, optimized one — visualizing the before-and-after of SEO improvements.

The Results (60 Days Later)

Organic Traffic: +142% (from 250 → 605 visits/month)
Top 3 Rankings: Increased from 3 → 11 keywords
Time on Page: +26%
Bounce Rate: Dropped by 19%
Pages Indexed: Cleaned from 112 → 84 (removed bloat)

This wasn’t magic. It was just the basics — fixed consistently and intentionally.

What This Means for You

If you’ve been blogging, redesigning, or building backlinks — but ignoring technical and on-page fundamentals — you’re likely leaving traffic on the table.

Most sites aren’t broken. They’re just misaligned.

Fix the basics. Measure the impact. Then build from there.

Want to Try This On Your Own Site?

Run an audit. Fix the obvious. Give it 30–60 days. You’ll likely see results faster than you expect.

Even better: build a habit of checking these things monthly — especially if your content strategy is working but your traffic isn’t reflecting it.

Simple SEO wins still move the needle — especially in 2025.